Lawsuit Alleges Cholesterol Drug Crestor Linked to Diabetes

In a lawsuit removed from state court to California federal court, a group of consumers alleges that drug maker AstraZenica deceived them by hiding test results linking its cholesterol drug Crestor (rosuvastatin) to diabetes and other diseases.

The consumers allege that the company’s own studies associated Crestor with higher risks of kidney damage, cardiomyopathy (weakening of the heart muscle), and heart disease, Law360 reports, but the defendants, AstraZeneca and the distributor McKesson Corp., suppressed or misrepresented the risks so that doctors would continue prescribing Crestor.

The legal complaint said the defendants were aware that “prescribing physicians would not be in a position to know the true risks of Crestor and … would rely upon the misleading information that they promulgated.” The suit was originally filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, but was removed to federal court after the plaintiffs tried to consolidate more than 600 claims before one judge. The plaintiffs come from 48 states and Puerto Rico.

In the lawsuit, the Crestor users alleged they would not have taken Crestor if they had known of the health risks, according to Law360. In 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that statin drugs, such as Crestor, were linked to an increased risk of Type II diabetes. According to the suit, “Defendants sold or aided and abetted in the sale of Crestor which was and is defective and unreasonably dangerous.” The defendants “knew or should have known that Crestor was and is hazardous to human health,” the complaint said.